This invention relates to a game, and more particularly, this invention relates to a game which simulates the trading of financial futures and its applications.
There are many games which involve principles of stock market trading, but most of these prior art games are based primarily on chance with little exercise of the player's skill and with little relation to actual market forces. For instance, the game described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,088,137 to McAbee involves the use of a chart with a number of columns intersected by rows with each square defined by the columns or rows specifying some occurrence dictating what a player must do when "landing" on the particular square by an element of chance denoted by the spinning of a pointer, or the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,163,423 to Jackson involves a board game with a layout quite similar to other typical board games, with squares around the periphery of the board and a number of stacks of instruction cards placed in the center of the board. Players move their tokens around the board according to the throw of dice and then follow the instructions printed on the squares in which they land.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,237,948 to Murray teaches a board game where moves of the players are dictated by cards chosen at random.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,770,277 to Cass involves a game where the players' moves are dictated by the throw of dice.
Other prior art games such as those disclosed in Lefevre et al Pat. Nos. 3,799,552 and Barnett 4,150,827 also provide boards of various configurations and are based on principles of chance whereby the moves made by the players are dictated by some arbitrary means such as the throw of dice, the spinning of a wheel, or the like.
Furthermore, all of these prior art games involve the concepts used in trading on stock markets, which concepts are fairly well known and easily understood. The players of these games are assumed to already have a familiarity with these concepts. There are no games, however, based on financial futures markets, markets which are comparatively new in the United States. The principles involved in trading on futures markets are more complex than those commonly understood to be involved in trading on stock markets. Thus, in order to fully understand the instant game, some background in the working of the financial futures markets is necessary.